Washington, Oct. 5 (CNA) Beijing should be made to understand that the United States will intervene militarily on Taiwan's behalf if Communist China attacks, according to an American expert.
Ross H. Munro, director of Asian studies at the Center for Security Studies in Washington, wrote in the National Review that Beijing's dramatic statements on Taiwan, aimed primarily at the American audience, are designed in part to hide the fact that Communist China's policy on Taiwan is "the product of a careful weighing of China's strategic interests."
In the eyes of PRC leaders, Munro pointed out, Taiwan is first and foremost a strategic target that must soon be subjugated if Communist China is to realize its goal of becoming Asia's dominant and unchallenged power. But the Clinton administration, unfortunately, with its persistent obtuseness, has failed to recognize Communist China's policy as a clear challenge to the vital strategic interests of the United States.
Munro noted that in fact, the Taiwan issue would not be incendiary today if there had not been a momentous shift in Communist Chinese "Grand Strategy" in the first half of the 1990s. Just as Taiwan was reaching a democratic consensus in favor of continued autonomy, the post-Deng Xiaoping generation of younger and more ambitious political and military leaders in mainland China was adopting a new grand strategy. The goal is to dominate Asia as every Chinese dynasty at the height of its power had done throughout history.
Suddenly, he said, the Beijing regime saw Taiwan's autonomy in a new and adversarial light: as a barrier preventing Communist China from achieving its strategic ambitions. The new generation of political and military leaders had concluded by 1994 that, in order to achieve the goal of dominating Asia, it must first seize control of Taiwan.
In December 1994, Munro wrote, the Communist Chinese military establishment held what amounted to a closed-door "Invade Taiwan!" pep rally. Sponsored by the Ministry of National Defense and the PLA's General Staff Headquarters, the gathering was characterized by officials as a "report session on strategic policy on Taiwan."
The main themes of the four-day meeting were that it would be necessary to use military force to achieve reunification and that "it will be better to resolve the issue of Taiwan earlier than doing it later. This will help develop the entire country and stabilize Asia and the whole world." It was also stated that "the most appropriate time" to attack Taiwan was between 2000 and 2005.
The timing of these events is significant, according to Munro, because they all preceded by many months the announcement of President Lee Teng-hui's visit to Cornell University, the event that most US Sinologists identify as the turning point in Communist China's Taiwan policy. Obviously, the Communist Chinese leadership, particularly military leaders, seized on this event as an excuse to bare their real intentions towards Taiwan.
But perhaps the clearest evidence of Beijing's new strategic ambitions, Munro said, appeared in a March 1996 article published by "Taiwan Affairs," a PRC journal. The title alone -- "Taiwan's Geostrategic Value Makes Reunification Essential" says it all. After reiterating the usual argument that Taiwan has always been part of China, author Lu Junyuan made it plain that Communist China's real interest in Taiwan is as a strategically valuable piece of real estate, saying "We can thus see that Taiwan occupies a unique and advantageous spot on the geostrategic map."
Yet, Munro pointed out, President Bill Clinton and his top officials refused to recognize that there is a fundamental strategic conflict of interest between Communist China and the United States: Beijing wants to dominate Asia, while Washington is still committed to maintaining a balance of power in Asia and preventing any single power from dominating the whole region. They also blamed Taiwan for preventing US-PRC relations from being dramatically and permanently improved.
Munro is convinced that the United States should first learn from Communist China. The Communist Chinese are right in attaching enormous strategic importance to Taiwan, he said. The United States has no military forces based in Taiwan, nor does it need them, as long as Taiwan's own robust forces continue to control its territory. The American military should remain the back-up force -- ready to intervene on Taiwan's behalf if the island is unable to counter a Communist Chinese military offensive.
Second, Washington should reduce "strategic ambiguity." For many years, Munro wrote.
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